Ore-prospecting breakthrough and research advances on the fully concealed super-large Shuiyindong Carlin-type gold deposit in Guizhou Province, China

Abstract

The Shuiyindong gold deposit (SGD) is the tenth largest Carlin-type gold deposit (CTGD) globally and the largest in Asia, which has undergone over 40 years of gold prospecting and exploration and more than 10 years of gold exploitation and utilization. However, the metallogenesis of the SGD remains controversial. Herein, we systematically reviewed the gold prospecting process and comprehensively analyzed the available research data on the SGD. The results demonstrate that (1) the SGD is a fully concealed super-large gold deposit with cumulative proven gold reserves of 308 t and orebody burial depths of 150–1,400 m, (2) the tectono-geochemical weak information extraction method can effectively reveal deep mineralization signatures and promote the discovery of deep orebodies, (3) the invisible gold in pyrite primarily occurs as lattice gold, (4) the chronological data of the SGD are primarily concentrated in 230–200 and 150–130 Ma and the gold mineralization may have been formed in the Early Cretaceous, and (5) the sources of ore-forming fluids and materials of the SGD are multi-source and related to magmatic hydrothermalism. Based on these findings, this study proposes a magmatism-driven metallogenic model for the SGD, providing a theoretical basis for further research and deep ore-prospecting of CTGDs.